


Protections and Temptations

by ifinkufreaky



Category: The Shannara Chronicles (TV)
Genre: Bedsharing, F/M, Magic Made Them Do It, Sex Magic, Sharing a Bed, because otherwise the magic won't work, i know it is to me, slow burn if chapter two is slow to you, you know how it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 12:55:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15243828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifinkufreaky/pseuds/ifinkufreaky
Summary: A Druid lives many lifetimes. And each time Allanon wakes, the Warlock Lord threatens. This time he aims to use a young woman to help him return, unless Allanon can take her somewhere beyond his reach.It may sound like this story has a plot, but I assure you that it's just a vehicle to deliver Hot Allanon Smut to you, with all his stoic, broody, I-cannot-form-any-attachments-in-this-world goodness. The plot reinforces the sex, and the sex reinforces the plot, and I'm quite pleased with how that turned out...





	1. Chapter 1

Every night, the Warlock Lord sent her terrible dreams. Rivani barely understood what was happening in them, but they were red and black and when she awoke with a scream she’d find her whole body shaking. When Allanon came, he had explained that the Warlock Lord was trying to use her as something called a ‘Vessel.’

Rivani would have to be spirited away, to a place where she would be shielded from the influence of evil. It was some kind of monastery, or maybe a university. Allanon had assured her parents that she would be safe, well-cared for, and would even receive a scholarly education. She would just… have to remain there, on their magically-protected grounds, for the rest of her life. So that one day some marauding demon or would-be warlock apprentice didn’t snatch her up and take her to one of the Warlock Lord’s places of power.

The monastery was far, and her father too ill to travel. Allanon was taking her alone. Her parents trusted him, and so she did too. Rivani had never met the mysterious Druid before, but she had heard many stories. Her parents had helped him save the world before she was born. Someone had mumbled that that was why she was vulnerable to the Warlock Lord today, but no one would explain that to her.

Allanon in the flesh was majestic, and taciturn, prone to long bouts of staring at the horizon with his strong jaw clenched. He looked younger than her parents, but held himself like something ancient. Rivani spent a lot of their time traveling just staring at him, even when she didn’t mean to.

And he could fight. Rivani knew how to hunt, but she was pretty much useless when the things she meant to kill were also trying to kill her. Along their way Allanon protected her from Rovers, trolls, and worse, as they traveled across what felt like the whole of the known world.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the way she had fallen in love with him. She tried to tell herself she was too young to know what love is, but even so, it was a terribly inconvenient crush. Allanon resisted all her attempts to get to know him better, rebuffing her innocent curiosity with grunts and growled that-is-not-for-you-to-knows.

It would have been easier to ignore her girlish feelings if it weren’t for their nights together. For Allanon could stop the dreams. His Druidic aura naturally shielded his mind from magic, and with a touch he could share that shield with Rivani too. Their first night on the road, he laid his bedroll down next to hers and spread one hand comfortingly across her shoulders as they settled in to sleep. She passed the night without a single dream, for the first time in months, and woke up rolled into Allanon’s side. She might have cried in relief at a true night’s rest without terror, but she was too distracted by the warmth of being tucked up under the Druid’s solid arm.

He didn’t push her away when his eyes opened. All he said was a gruff “we’d best get on the road quickly” with wide and awkward eyes looking anywhere but at her as he rose.

The next night they reclined once more with his hot palm resting on her shoulderblade, and the next morning his whole body was curled around hers. By the fourth night Rivani dropped the pretense of personal space and rolled out her blankets overlapping his. Allanon had laid down on his back wordlessly, but there was a glint of warmth in his eye when he lifted his arm for her to curl herself underneath.

It was innocent, she knew that. Aside from keeping the nightmares at bay, the ground was so hard and uncomfortable, and she was grateful to be allowed to use Allanon’s shoulder as a pillow. Their bodies shared warmth in the chill night air and they both got better sleep this way. It didn’t matter that it sometimes made her think about other things.

They awoke with their legs tangled snugly together, and Rivani’s mind flashed to the memory of laying down in the tall grass with Thom Bunker, after she saved every dance for him at the harvest festival last year. Allanon coughed and stood up like something had bitten him.

 

* * *

Allanon told Rivani to stay hidden while he was gone. They had stumbled upon an ancient palace, so ruined that only one room still had four walls and part of a roof. Deciding the shelter was too good to pass up, when it was already afternoon and the sky threatened rain, they had started to set up their camp inside when Allanon realized they were lacking fresh water.

She understood the dangers, really she did, but Rivani found that she just could not deny the temptation to explore the rest of the palace grounds. Before Allanon had taken her, she had never been farther than a half-day’s ride from her home.

Who had lived here? Why were they all gone now? She found very few clues: an ivory comb, a garden gone so wild she didn’t even realize the square had once been planted deliberately until she found a little cluster of tomatoes right next to a row of carrots. She had planned to get back to their little room well before Allanon could have returned from the river, but once her skirt was balanced with as much fresh produce it could possibly hold, she realized that she had lost track of time completely. He was certain to be angry with her, and she could only hope that a reprieve from dry rations and the stringy game they’d managed to catch along the road would appease his temper.

Her steps slowed as she reached the corner of the overgrown palace where they had made their camp. The sun was going down now, and the doorway to their chamber loomed dark before her. She dreaded facing the lecture about safety that was sure to come.

The hair on the back of her neck stood up when Rivani drew closer, and unexpected sounds hit her ear. Scuffing footsteps, heavy breathing, a low grunt. Coming from inside that room. Had their camp been attacked; was Allanon fighting something? Rivani ducked behind a broken column and dropped the food from her skirt as quietly as she could. When she couldn’t hear anything else, she crept up the wall next to the stone doorway.

Panting breathing, shifting fabric. Rivani pulled the thin knife from its sheath at her belt and sucked in air before peeking her face through the doorway.

The first thing her eyes focused on was the broad spread of Allanon’s shoulders, bare skin gleaming even in the dim light of the gloomy chamber. He was bent over another person, but they weren’t fighting. As she watched, too shocked to make a sound, his branded neck flexed while his face burrowed into the crook of some dark-haired woman’s shoulder, his arms wrapped tight around her. And his hips… the motion of his hips took Rivani’s breath away, undulating between staccato bursts as he fucked her with relish.

The passion in their movements all but hypnotized her, though in the back of Rivani’s mind a voice was screaming at her to say something, announce herself, or just politely walk away… anything but staring at the way Allanon devoured this woman’s skin, the way his hips pumped into her just short of savagely. The place between Rivani’s own legs ached just watching it.

Fascination turned to sheer confusion when Allanon’s lover threw her head back and keened. It was Rivani’s own face, twisted up in something between pain and joy. Somehow, Rivani was watching _herself_ being pounded into by the  Druid, and evidently she loved it. Her whole body started to tremble before she could force any words to come to her tongue.

“Allanon…”

He threw his head back, eyes wide in confusion as he stared at Rivani standing in the doorway. His hips stopped moving, though his whole body shuddered at the effort.

He looked back down at the Rivani beneath him. An unearthly cackle burst from her throat, and the demon stretched its blackening arms up to his face and resumed its true form.

 

* * *

“The temptation demon,” she began, when their dinner of roasted vegetables and half a stringy hare was complete.

Allanon’s whole body stiffened and he cut her off from speaking any further. “I am sorry you had to see that. I should have been wiser.”

Rivani smiled, unable to pass up an opportunity to tease. “I think you should be grateful I came in when I did. Looked like she was about to get what she wanted. Would she have killed you?”

Allanon resumed cleaning up after their meal, movements brusque and jerky. “A demon like that kills their mate, yes. After taking their seed.” He looked at her without turning his head, almost bashful as he peered from the corner of his eye. Hoping she was not going to ask any more.

“You thought it was me.”

He flinched and turned away from her immediately, busied himself packing the last bit of uneaten food away. “I hoped you hadn’t seen that,” was all he could say for himself.

Then his hands stopped moving. He sat up straighter, and when he turned to face her again his shoulders were squared and his eyes were kind and distant. “You have no need to fear me, Rivani. I need you to know that.” His voice was back to that husky rumble he used when giving his Very Important Speeches. “I would never do… what you saw…” he winced at the memory, but then recovered and pressed on. “I am here to protect you, and I would not take advantage of you. The temptation demon, it confused me, and… said things you would never say.” A wisp of tenderness passed through the formality of his features, so swiftly that she wouldn’t have caught it if she hadn’t been watching his face so raptly. “You are safe with me. I hope you still believe that.”

Rivani inched closer, and could see the effort it took Allanon to remain still and let her come. They had been in the habit of so many casual touches, but she could see that he was now afraid to reassure her that way. “I feel completely safe with you, Allanon,” she said, because it was the truth, but mostly to see the guilty tension start to drain out of his face. Here was a man that took his responsibilities very seriously. Still, she had to ask one more thing. “What did she say to you?” _How did she get you to do that?_

He scowled, moving away from her again to retrieve their rolled-up bedding. “You do not need to know. A temptation demon has strong influence, if it can catch you unaware.”

“Don’t I?” Rivani pressed, waving away his second statement as a flimsy excuse and following him when he tried to walk away. She wasn’t worried, she was just… terribly curious. All through dinner she kept thinking of the look on her double’s face, and Allanon’s bare and undulating hips. “You say that you would never… do that to me, but you _did_. What did I say, when you thought that it was me?”

“She asked me to,” he said softly. Surprisingly, it sounded like the words hurt him a little coming out. He walked over to the flattest part of the floor, where they had decided to make their beds. “That is all that you need to know. That I would never take advantage of you, touch you in any way without your consent. But when you said— _She_ said…” he trailed off, unfurling the bedrolls.

He placed them almost three feet apart.

Panic shot through Rivani at the sight. “Allanon, the dreams! I still need—”

He cut her off with a shushing sound, an outstretched hand that still did not touch her. “Don’t fret, I’ll keep you safe from the Warlock Lord. I will keep my hand on you. As we started the first night. The way that we should have kept it, every night.”

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

Sleep did not come easily under Allanon’s hand. The fire was banked, night had fallen fully, and the Druid’s breaths were deep and even, though Rivani did not think he was actually asleep either. There was nothing left to do but rest, and yet Rivani’s mind could not settle.

Allanon had killed the demon, and assured her that the boundary line he had set around their corner of the ruins would alert him if any other being approached while they slept. But every time she tried to settle down, Rivani couldn’t stop thinking about the thing that had worn her face.

It wasn’t that she was afraid of it. She trusted Allanon to protect her, as he had so many times already. Instead, what her mind kept bringing back up was the look she had seen on her double’s face. Rivani kept mimicking it in the dark, as she lay facing away from the Druid. Trying to imagine what she must have been feeling, with Allanon’s cock inside her. Her brows had been creased like she was completely overwhelmed, but something about the angle of her mouth, and the throaty moan that had spilled from her lips, spoke of a deep pleasure, something Rivani wasn’t sure she could even imagine properly. While she had fooled around with her old beau plenty of times before that relationship turned sour, they had never actually had sex.

Allanon’s hand felt so hot where it cupped the top of her shoulder. She wanted it to move. She imagined him sliding it down over her waist, reaching between her legs toward that tingling ache that seemed to have never quite stopped since she had seen him in the throes of passion.

RIvani shifted against the hard ground, rolling onto her belly. Allanon’s hand slid across the top of her shoulder as she moved, coming to rest in the center of her back. He settled it into a new comfortable angle, with his arm stretched long across the gap between their bedrolls, and then she knew he was still awake too.

There was no intent to it, but that passive slide of his fingers across her body felt like the beginnings of what she was craving. Rivani writhed a little under his hand, slow and casual, like maybe she was still just trying to get comfortable. Just to feel it move. She imagined the weight of that palm was a loving caress, promising more…

“Stop that,” Allanon growled. He didn’t let go of her, he wasn’t going to leave her to the Warlock Lord’s dreams, but he curled his hand into a fist, leaving just knuckles and wrist resting in contact with the wing of her shoulder. Much less intimate.

Embarrassment burned through Rivani at the thought that he recognized what she was doing, and didn’t like it. Didn’t he want her? “Allanon…” she began.

“Hush,” he cut her off. “I need rest. As do you.”

* * *

 

The next day’s ride was pure torture for Rivani, watching Allanon sit atop his tall black steed, hips rolling effortlessly to absorb its every change in gait. The motion looked too similar to the image that was burned onto the backs of her eyeballs. By the time the sun rose above the treetops, her ‘girlish crush’ had exploded into a full-on woman’s lust, and by midday she was certain of her goal: she was going to give her virginity to the Druid Allanon.

The only question that remained was ‘how.’ Should she bare her body and offer herself to him silently after he laid down for the night? Should she bring it up over dinner so they could talk about it like adults? She hadn’t a clue what she would say, though. Should she find some excuse to brush up against him, drop a handkerchief in front of him, walk right up to him and straddle his lap? What would it feel like to spread herself out over his strong thighs; would his beard tickle or scratch against her bare skin?

“Do you have to think so loudly?” Allanon growled, without turning around.

Rivani felt her cheeks burn just as a rush of ice shot down her spine. “You—you really read minds?”

“Currently trying not to.”

Mortified, she sank into her saddle. Had he caught all of that? She tried to remember what exactly she had been daydreaming about just now, then tried just as deliberately _not_ to.

The horses plodded on. Rivani’s embarrassment twisted into confusion. This was the second time now that Allanon had caught a whiff of her lust and shut her down just as quickly. And yet, he had also admitted he thought that the demon was truly her, wanting him, and the passion with which he had responded to her was obvious. Was not Rivani’s own willingness now just as clear?

She squeezed her heels into her mount’s flanks until she came abreast of Allanon and could look him in the eye. “We should talk about this.”

Allanon’s gaze burned into her for just a moment, then he was back to staring at the horizon as the horses plodded along. “You don’t want me to be your first,” he scoffed, like that was something he could just pronounce. “You’ll find yourself a nice farmboy soon enough.”

Rivani leaned forward over her horse’s neck, twisting her head and trying to recapture his eyes. “Not if you’re taking me to a _nunnery!_ ”

Allanon’s face broke out into the most attractive creases as he chuckled his reply. “As persistent as you are, Rivani, I am certain you’ll find a way.”

She loved the sound of her name on his tongue. “I could have had a farmboy,” she retorted. “Plenty of them. But it just didn’t feel right.” She shrugged, letting out a heavy breath. Allanon risked another sidelong glance at her and she caught his gaze before he could look away. “I didn’t know what I was waiting for, but now I do.” The hero of the realm. A man of legend. Her guardian and protector. She stared at him, unblinking.

The corners of his eyes tightened up like he was in pain.

Rivani pressed on. “I know what I want. Ever since I saw us together, I’m on fire for you. And I know that you want me.”

“It is not that simple,” Allanon interrupted.

“It was that simple yesterday, when you thought it was me underneath you.”

Allanon clenched his teeth, and finally dragged his eyes away from hers. “And now,” he said, voice growing distant, “I have had time to realize the error of my ways.”

“What is the error! I’m practically begging, Allanon. How is this any different from whatever she said to you.”

He continued to speak softly. “When you discovered us, and I saw the shock on your face, I realized that the choice I had made was not honorable.”

“Allanon, I was shocked because I was staring at a copy of myself. I wasn’t _judging_ you!”

He tapped his horse’s flanks with his heels, urging him ahead of her pestering. “But I should be judged. To take you in that way, it is not my place.”

Rivani groaned, as much from hearing Allanon even talk about ‘taking her’ as from sheer frustration. “Why on earth would you think that.”

“I am here to protect you,” he pronounced, riding ahead and once again not turning around as he spoke, “and guide you to safety. It is unfortunate that this temptation was cast between us, but we have only a few more days before we reach our destination. We can resist.”

* * *

 

She couldn’t move. Rivani struggled but a hundred somethings, hard and sharp, bit into her flesh and bound her down. There was a presence, boiling red and black, that her eyes couldn’t quite focus on, and it was coming closer. She tried to scream, but nothing would come out. Instead, the oily smoke seemed to take her open mouth as an invitation to try and slide down her throat—

Rivani gasped awake, coughing into the still night to rid herself of the final sensation of the dream. The dull embers of their campfire showed Allanon’s back, curled away from her. Her sudden sounds roused him enough to look over his shoulder at her through bleary eyes.

Rivani rolled almost violently toward him, fingers biting into his arm as she pulled it around herself, wrenching his body to face hers. “You let go,” she accused, voice somewhere between a wail and a screech. “He found me.”

Allanon’s eyes focused on hers, coming fully awake. They softened in recognition of her suffering and then the Druid was tucking her against his chest, big arms folding around her tight and remaining locked there until her trembling stopped. “I am sorry,” he murmured against her hair.

“Is he… doing something to me, during the dreams?” she asked, horror slipping into her voice. “Does the Warlock Lord get more of a hold on me every time this happens?”

“No. He shouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Shouldn’t be,” she echoed. She took in one sharp breath through her nose, then stirred in Allanon’s arms until he released her. “Let’s not give him another chance.” She reached back for her own blankets and dragged them closer, then wedged herself alongside Allanon’s body.

“Rivani,” the Druid chided, but she just huffed at him.

“I’m not trying to seduce you. I’m just not taking the chance of losing touch in our sleep again.” She settled in against his warm flank and sighed. “And if you’re still insisting that having sex with me would not be ‘honorable,’ I am certain that your legendary Druid willpower will keep us safe tonight. I am going back to sleep.”

But after the chill of that extra-vivid dream, sleep was a long time coming.

* * *

 

Talking hadn’t worked. But neither had it convinced her to give up her quest. Rivani tried to beam her thoughts at Allanon as they traveled the next day, but it seemed he had ceased eavesdropping on her mind for now. Even the dirtiest mental images she could come up with did not even cause him to bat an eye. So all she was doing was torturing herself by picturing them naked and entangled, his hands scooping at her breasts and spreading her down below...

The silence between them continued as they found a good spot to settle in for the night. Her mood might have turned black if not for the way she kept catching Allanon staring at her as they went about the business of setting up their little camp just off the road. The hunger in his eyes told her she should not abandon hope yet. The passion behind that lust almost made her fear she would get more than she could handle if she convinced him to crack tonight.

Rivani held his gaze with a challenge in her eyes, saying nothing. She angled her chin to bare her neck like a submissive animal, daring him to pounce. She watched Allanon’s eyes slide down her collarbone, lips parting, then he turned abruptly and went to tend to his horse with a huffing breath.

The tent was set before the sun sank below the horizon, their meal cooked and eaten amidst the wordless tension between them. Normally, Allanon made quickly for his bedroll by now, spouting the wisdom of ‘proper rest’ and intending to be on the road at the first light of dawn in the morning. But tonight, they both sat still, staring at the flames as full night fell.

“Tell me about this place that we are going,” Rivani said softly. Tomorrow, they would be there, and their time together on this journey would draw to an end. “It is so far from my home that I have never even heard of it.”

“The Sanctum of Edall is a place of contemplation, and learning. It sits atop a natural confluence that dispels and disrupts all magic.” Allanon’s fingers absently brushed the runes branded onto the back of his neck. “It has always been a haven for those who wish to remove themselves from the conflicts of our world.”

There was a wistfulness in his tone that made Rivani’s heart hurt. She knew all about the way his magic tied him to the wheel of fate. And here was a place that might be able to make Allanon’s burden disappear. “How does it feel for a Druid to enter there?”

Allanon sat back. “It was… strange. I felt cut off from something I had stopped even noticing was there.”

She waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. He seemed lost in deep thoughts as he watched the dancing flames.

He roused himself suddenly. “If it is still the same as it was at my last visit, then the nuns will welcome you to find a place among them. They keep a vast library, and have a lively tradition of scholarship and debate. They are consulted as experts on many topics by the local kingdoms.”

“If it is still the same,” Rivani echoed. “When was your last visit, Allanon?”

His eyes shifted as he calculated. “It would have to be…” his jaw tightened as he trailed off. “One hundred and twenty years ago,” he admitted.

Rivani shifted, pulling her knees closer to her chest. He didn’t look that old. It was a little awkward to be reminded. “So things could have changed.” The whole place could be in ruins for all they knew.

“The magical protection is in the alignment of forces deep underground,” Allanon said, sounding a little defensive. “That will still be there. And that is the important part.”

“Of course,” Rivani replied quickly. “No matter what it’s like now, what else happens to me there, the important part is that you’ve once again found a way to stop one of the Warlock Lord’s plans.” Allanon had the grace to look a little stricken, but he didn’t say anything to argue the point. A bitter sentiment overwhelmed her. “I suppose that no matter what, you will be glad to be rid of me after tomorrow, on to your next great quest.”

Allanon’s face softened, and he shook his head. “No, Rivani. I feel a great many things when I look at you, but that is not one of them.”

It took a moment for his words to cut through her seething emotions. She stared into the brown depths of his eyes, almost black in the scant light, and inched her body closer.

The skin around his eyes tightened. He looked saddened and tense but his body leaned toward hers too.

Rivani spoke softly, gaze flitting down to the smoothness of his lips and back up again. “I wish you would unburden yourself, of this misguided sense of honor about me.”

Allanon shook his head softly. “Getting attached to me will only end in heartbreak.” He pulled back from her, but not very far. “The Druid sleep will call me again, whether it be in a matter of years, or months. The magic must be replenished, and it cannot be refused. This ‘misguided honor’ is another way that I am protecting you, Rivani. I have nothing to offer a lover but loneliness.”

* * *

 

They laid side by side in their little tent, both shifting and restless. Allanon turned onto his side, and Rivani rolled abruptly to face him. “Don’t _you_ ever get lonely?”

He angled his head in a rueful expression. “I try not to dwell on it. It is the fate of the last Druid.”

“Fate,” Rivani scoffed. “You’re just as arrogant, and distant, as all the stories say. Is it written somewhere, in some Druid Code, that you must hold yourself apart like this?”

She heard him exhale softly as he rolled onto his back. “It seems like a kindness. I am destined to abandon anyone that comes to care about me. Better if each time I wake, my companions find me vaguely unpleasant, and are happy to see me go.”

“Allanon.” She dared to reach up and lay her palm across his cheek. “I will not be glad to see you go. If that is what you worry about, that damage has already been done.”

He said nothing, only took her hand firmly in his as he tried to read her face in the dim moonlight filtering through the tent walls. He lifted it from his cheek and set it back against her own chest. But Rivani could feel the way his fingers wanted to linger against hers.

“You think you’re protecting me by holding back. It’s insulting,” she said, letting a little sharpness creep into her voice. “I know I can’t keep you. I know when you drop me off at that monastery I will likely never see you again. _I know._ So, just… give me this gift. I can take the loss that comes after.”

He continued to gaze at her, face entirely inscrutable. When she realized that for once Allanon was not going to argue back, Rivani let her rising passion take her. She got up on her elbow, tucked her long hair behind her ear, and leaned forward to brush her lips against his mouth.

Allanon didn’t move. He didn’t even breathe. She closed her eyes and did it again, pursing her lips and letting them linger this time. When she released him he finally breathed out, with a little hitch in the way the air burst from his lungs that let her know he had enjoyed it even if he was still holding everything else back.

With her own shaky exhale she let her lips explore his cheekbone in soft kisses, finding to her delight that the glossy hairs of his beard were silky and smooth when she dragged them in one direction, and pleasantly-tingling prickles when going the other way. He had a musk that set her heart beating faster, which smelled the strongest just in front of his ear.

And when Rivani touched his lips again, Allanon began to kiss her back. He drew her bottom lip in between the two of his and she made a soft noise. She felt emboldened to lay the weight of her upper body onto his chest, bringing both of her hands up to caress the sides of his head as they tasted each other.

The sound she drew from him was something between a grumble and a groan. Surly up to the very end, even as his hands slipped up her sides, over her back and tangled up in her hair, pulling her deeper into his kiss.

Rivani’s head was spinning. Her body had never reacted so strongly to someone before. She climbed almost completely on top of him, pressing the full length of her thighs and belly into his warmth and yet still didn’t feel like they were close enough.

Allanon’s legs threaded through hers as his mouth opened underneath her, sucking the tongue that she eagerly pressed inside. His hands cradled her skull but they were restless, sliding across her hair, gripping the roots, cupping her jaw as he savored her kiss.

Still she suspected he was holding back from her.

“This is all I want, Allanon,” she murmured against him, her voice breathy with excitement. “I give myself to you freely. Touch me… everywhere. Take me how you like.” She thought again of the near-violence she had seen when he coupled with the demon. The thought only thrilled her. “Make me yours tonight.”

His lips recaptured hers roughly, and she had the fleeting sensation that his renewed vigor was meant only to get her to stop talking. But his hands were encircling her ribs, and his hips were rocking softly in time with hers now. She ached to satisfy this need to feel even closer.

She let one hand travel down, over the expanse of his chest, down the softer warmth of his belly. Her fingers followed his hipbone, diving to find the hardness that had begun to poke the inside of her thigh. Though somewhat obscured by the thickness of his trousers, his cock felt solid, and maybe bigger than she had expected.

Rivani moaned to feel the evidence of his desire, even as Allanon’s fingers closed around her wrist, stopping her movement. Her palm burned when he pulled it away. “Rivani,” he said, voice growling with low command.

She froze the desperate motion of her hips, the frantic caresses of her lips, hoping he was not about to end this dream after all.

“Roll onto your back,” he instructed, “and pull your skirt up.”

She noticed herself trembling a little as she complied, told herself it was only because she wanted this so badly. She stripped her leggings off neatly, skin turning to gooseflesh where she bared it too the cool night air. The hem of her long undershirt was easy to draw higher, though she stopped short of uncovering her sex.

Now Allanon was the one looming over her. His hand came out not for her thigh, but her face, and he pulled her into a sweeter kiss before moving to cover her body with his own.

Though her arms tried to welcome him against her chest, Allanon kissed his way lower, nuzzling her shoulder, her chest, the softness of her stomach.

“What are you doing, Allanon?”

The Druid huffed a hot breath against the top of her exposed thigh. “You are more tenacious than I ever dreamed,” he complained. “But perhaps I can get you to finally give me some peace, if I give you an orgasm or two.”

“What?”

Her answer came in the way he pushed her legs apart, and the warm ghosting sigh he released over the center of her slit. His kiss fell a moment later, tongue sliding between her lower lips as he began searching out all her pleasure points. He groaned after his first taste of her, a soft, desperate sound that made it clear this was affecting him more deeply than his words had let on.

Rivani couldn’t help but murmur her pleasure as Allanon’s tongue found her clit, circling it with relish like it tasted of something sweet. Her old boyfriend had tried this before, but his exploration had been so much more tentative. Allanon charged in like he owned the place, plundering her treasures like this act was giving him as much pleasure as it was setting off in her. Rivani felt like he was bringing her to life in ways she hadn’t even realized were possible.

His fingers dug greedily into the flesh of her hips, pulling her even closer to him. As her soft cries grew quicker, he worried at her like a feasting animal, almost growling like one too as he encouraged her to reach her peak. Rivani threaded the fingers of one hand through his hair and angled her hips toward his face as well as she could as her legs began to shake.

“Ah, Allanon!” She had to say his name as she crested, wrapping her thighs around his head as he buried his face in her deeper, chasing her orgasm into multiple crests before he would let her go. Only when she dropped her legs in exhaustion did he finally relent, wiping his face across the back of one still-gloved hand as he moved to pull his body up alongside hers on the bedroll.

Allanon gathered Rivani in his arms, her back against his chest, as she hummed through her aftershocks and tried to gather the pieces of her mind back together. He pulled their warmest blanket over both their bodies and settled his chin atop her head.

Her body was going languid, her consciousness already trying to drift away, but still Rivani reached behind her for Allanon’s leather-clad hip.

“Leave it,” he grunted just above her ear, though she was sure he had to be achingly hard after all of that. “If you’re not yet satisfied, I can whisper more secrets into the depths of your body until you pass out from it.”

* * *

She woke later to feel Allanon’s body shaking softly beside hers. She knew he would refuse her again if she tried to get involved, so she tried to keep her own breathing even and low as she listened to him huff, trying to imagine the delicious sight just beyond her eyelids of the Druid taking himself in hand and  frantically blowing off his own tension while he thought she was still asleep. Damn his honor.


	3. Chapter 3

The Sanctum of Edall did turn out to still be standing. Allanon gave Rivani only one smug, did-I-not-say-that-it-would-be-so look when they crested the ridge, but did not otherwise gloat.  As they approached they found there was a whole city built up around the nunnery now, busy and loud, full of bright colors and people speaking many languages. Rivani was quite overwhelmed by the time they were making their way through the bustling marketplace, while Allanon seemed only bemused.

“I had forgotten how quiet it feels here,” he remarked after an awkward exchange with a merchant who almost collided with them.

“Excuse me?” Rivani replied, scrunching up her face. “There are people everywhere!”

A smile tugged at the corner of Allanon’s lip. “I have no access to magic here. The Earth has ceased speaking to me, and I can’t read any of the minds around us.”

Rivani cocked her head to the side, looking up at the craggy face shadowed underneath his hood. “Huh. That’s going to be quite a change for you. Let me know if you need any advice on how to act like a normal member of the human race again.” And, just because he couldn't hear her, she thought quite pointedly at him: _actually talking about last night would be a great place to start._

Allanon only smiled at her joke, and ushered her toward the ancient Sanctum.

They introduced themselves at the gate, and after a brief explanation of their quest they were ushered inside the gleaming white building. The wait was not long before they were taken to meet with the Head Matron herself. They entered a room with high, airy ceilings where they were met by a wide-faced old woman with sparkling eyes, in a rich red dress that looked like yards and yards of fabric had gone into the making of it. She was flanked by two junior members of the order who gazed up at Allanon like they were in the presence of a god.

“You say that the Warlock Lord has chosen this young woman as a Vessel,” the Head Matron repeated.

“Yes,” Allanon replied, “she has been experiencing the dreams.”

The woman in charge smiled kindly at Rivani. _This is it,_ she thought, _the moment my life is over and I’m inducted into a nunnery. At least it seems like a rich one._

But instead of saying anything to her, the Head Matron addressed Allanon again. “It has been a long time since you last visited our order, Druid. Progress has been made in the research regarding this area of the ancient texts.” She turned to the skinny, owl-faced young woman behind her. “One of our junior scholars wrote a thesis on the matter of the Warlock Lord’s Vessels that you might find enlightening.” She gave the girl an encouraging smile and thrust her forward.

“Um, yes,” the junior scholar mumbled, giving them a furtive curtsy. She was certainly older than Rivani, but acted like she had barely ever spoken to strangers before. Was this a vision of her own future? A bookish life cut off from everything else? “I found, um, an error in the traditional translation.” She looked down at the sheaf of papers she carried in one arm, which seemed to give her the courage to start speaking more loudly. “The vessels are always ‘maidens,’ as you know. But, a more accurate translation of the word is ‘virgin.’”

Allanon’s heavy brows creased. Rivani suppressed an embarrassed smile.

“Now, there is still some heavy debate regarding the best definition of this word; personally I find it highly unlikely that the ancients prioritized the male phallus or were referring simply to an intact hymen.”

Rivani felt Allanon stiffen beside her. If only this young woman knew how much talk of virginity Allanon had already had to suffer on this trip. And how hard he had been working to preserve it.

“Spiritually,” the junior scholar continued, “virginity is a state free from consummation of desire. By my interpretation of the older texts, a ‘virgin’ would then be a person who has not experienced the ultimate act of love with another person, however it is that they themselves define that act.”

Rivani sneaked another peek up at Allanon’s face as he stood by her side, imagining how hard it must be for him to sit through the scholar’s ramblings without being able to just pluck from her mind the conclusion she was working herself up to. Storm clouds were certainly gathering in his eyes as he shifted his weight from side to side.

“It would, for example, depend on the orientation of the virgin in question. And then there is of course the matter of consent; according to the laws of magic someone who has been raped is still spiritually a virgin—”

“Your point?” Allanon finally growled.

The owlish woman blushed and squirmed. Rivani felt terrible for her, to spoken to so roughly by a living legend. She reached out to soften his blow, but the junior scholar was already answering him. “Of course. Semantics later. The-the point is simple, really. When she is not a virgin anymore, the Warlock Lord’s magic will not work, and she can no longer be his Vessel.”

Allanon shifted uncomfortably, and would not meet Rivani’s eyes.

Victory felt so good. “So you are saying…” Rivani prompted, just to hammer it home to the stubborn Druid.

“It is wonderful that you have come here, and I am excited to document your case, but you will not have to stay. All you need to do is find someone with whom to experience a free and welcome act of physical love. Then you will be perfectly safe.”

“An act that is, as you said, a _full_ consummation of desire?” Rivani pressed.

“Yes, whatever you personally consider to be the ultimate act of intimacy. That is what removes the magic of virginity from you. According to Fleming’s model, my personal favorite, it is a change in the frequency of the vibration of your—”

Rivani had stopped listening, turned squarely toward her traveling companion. “And then I’ll be ‘perfectly safe,’” she echoed. “I seem to recall that your promise, above all else, was to keep me safe, Allanon.” She wanted to take his hand, but felt too bashful. The heavy look in his eyes was inscrutable.

The bookish nun was still talking. “Now I expect it may take you some time to find the right person to share this act with. You are free to take lodging with us as long as you need, here under the protection of the Sanctuary. You can’t just take care of it mechanically, you see. If you feel invaded or forced it might not end up working. The magical signature of “virginity” is not truly dispelled without enthusiastic consent—”

The Head Matron cut her off this time, gently pulling the junior scholar back with a hand on her shoulder. Rivani and Allanon had eyes only for each other. “I do not think the young woman has that particular obstacle, child,” she said softly, laughing only a little at the infatuation evident in both her guests’ faces.

 

* * *

Comfortable lodgings had been provided. The Head Matron had had them discreetly shown to a room decorated in marble whites and gauzy golds, with stained-glass windows and an enormous bed at the center. They had each had a chance to bathe and eat after their long travels, and now there was nothing left but their final task.

Rivani had been so excited to get to this moment, alone with Allanon, ready to consummate her greatest desire. And yet now that the time was here, they found themselves awkwardly avoiding each others’ eyes. It felt so different from last night, when passion hurtled her against his lips and led her to whisper wanton offers in his ear.

She sat softly on the wide bed, smoothing the sheets under her hands, rubbing as if admiring them when Allanon did not immediately sit down beside her. At least she would experience her first time in luxury, rather than rolling around on the forest floor. Though she already felt nostalgic for those other nights together. On this evening, making love to Allanon was suddenly about more than just something that she wanted. Now it had become something that was _supposed to_ happen, and that had her nerves clenching, made the idea feel much more overwhelming.

Allanon might have been feeling it too. He paced around the room, inspecting the décor, and Rivani felt pulled to him and terrified of him at the same time. His dark robes contrasted so starkly with the light colors surrounding them here in this bright and airy Sanctum room. Had he always been so tall, did she always find his look so forbidding?

“Second thoughts?” he rasped softly into the silence. She realized he had caught her staring, with one hand still keeping her cloak wrapped tightly around her chest.

“I could ask you the same question,” Rivani said quickly, letting her cloak fall open and hiding her doubts. “Ranging around the room, looking everywhere but at me… are you satisfied there are no traps yet, that there is no trickery here?”

Allanon turned squarely to face her, drawing in a haughty breath as he regarded her for a long moment. Then his face melted into a kind smile, with a bemused twist at the corner of his lip as if he was laughing at himself. “This is a very strange situation.” He looked magnificent as he approached in his dark leathers, taking a seat next to her upon the edge of the giant fluffy bed.

“I thought it would only make this easier for you,” Rivani retorted as he came over. He may have appeared to have dropped his doubts, but she still felt the impulse to fight. “Now it is the rules of Magic Itself that require you to do the very thing I’ve been asking. I would say, in fact, that honor now demands it.” She smirked at him as she pointed out the irony, but the glee was false. All she felt was insecure.

“You say that, but you slip away each time that I get close to you.” He gestured toward her feet and Rivani realized she had stood up almost as soon as he sat down.

She couldn’t just blame the awkwardness on him, then. Rivani closed her eyes, trying to find her center and clear this agitation. “All right, yes, I am nervous,” she admitted, eyes still closed.

“I would not cause you distress,” he soothed. “Allow me to take leave, and remove the cause of suffering.” Allanon’s gravelly voice had turned almost to a whisper. He stood and Rivani found herself pressing hands to his chest to stop him.

“Don’t.” The anxiety rising in her throat eased as soon as she touched him, so she leaned in for more, daring to slide her arms along his flanks, sighing in relief when he wrapped her up in a warm embrace. He wasn’t going to take this for an excuse to run from her, after all.

Rivani stayed there a moment, buried in his chest, steadying her nerves. She trusted Allanon. She was safe. She still wanted none but him to be the one to take her to bed, to be wrapped in these arms while she experienced that ‘ultimate intimacy’ for the first time…

When she finally turned her head up his face was right there, searching her eyes intently. His fingers splayed across her back, scooping her up, holding her close. He was afraid to want her, she could see it now. Afraid she was about to change her mind.

For him, Rivani found her courage. She pressed her mouth onto his for a kiss that started sweet but did not end until both their hips had started winding together. It was a heady and almost unbelievable experience, to actually be allowed to kiss this man’s lips, and to feel him pressing back against her with matched intensity once he felt her fire.

“I may be nervous,” she whispered, “but you are still the one I want.” She returned her lips to his quickly, punctuating her point. “I trust you,” she added between kisses, “I desire you,” she caught his bottom lip between hers in a playful nip, “and after last night,” she saved her last words to whisper in his ear, “I ache for the pleasures I know you can bring.”

He growled against her skin. Last night it had sounded frustrated, but this time it was unrestrained, a lusty sound that was her only warning before he lifted her around the waist and tossed her onto the bed behind them. Rivani was a bit startled when she landed on her back, but she stayed down as Allanon climbed over top of her, surrendering to the passion she had spent so much effort trying to coax out of him.

Still, he caught her eyes as he settled his body over top of hers, watching to be sure he hadn’t frightened her with the sudden roughness. She lifted her head, seeking his mouth greedily again, to prove she could keep up with him. She welcomed the scratch of his beard across her cheeks as he devoured her, pressing her down into the mattress with the force of his next kiss.

His hands scrambled with the clasp of her cloak, then the buckles of her jacket, the ties of her corset. Every time he pulled away from her mouth to look at what he was doing he huffed and returned to hungry kisses, like he couldn’t decide which was more important in this moment.

Rivani’s clever fingers had an easier time with the fastenings of his heavy coat, and when she tried to push it off his shoulders Allanon reared up to remove it, balancing on his knees above her outstretched body and the rumpled mess he had made of her hair and clothing.

He was wearing a thin, dark shirt underneath. Allanon tried to lean into her again, but Rivani would not let him return to her arms until that was stripped off too, exposing broad shoulders and well-muscled chest. She froze for a moment, taking in the sight. Dark hair grew across his pectoral muscles, which rippled under his skin when he brought his hands down to her chest, resuming his own attempts at removing her clothing. Her mouth went a little dry. His body was not like the farmboy’s, either.

Allanon’s hands slowed. He dropped his head, and she swore he all but smirked at her overwhelmed state as he looked at her from under heavy brows. “You like what you see. I’d like to see you too,” he prompted, tugging at the garments hiding her body from his eyes, all of which would require some amount of her squirming assistance to remove.

She sat up on her elbows; Allanon nuzzled down the side of her neck as he drew her suede jacket down to bare her shoulders. He kissed the newly-discovered flesh as she shrugged herself out of the rest of it, and loosened her corset enough to free all its hook fasteners and let it fall open to either side of her body. Now she was laying on a pile of her own discarded layers under the Druid’s eyes as they swept over her, covered only by her thin linen underdress.

This was the same thing she had worn to bed all those nights she lay next to him as they traveled, but somehow it felt like so much less right now. Probably because he was finally looking right at her, drinking in the curves of her barely-concealed body, the darkness of her nipples apparent through the thin fabric in the warm glow filtering through the windows of their private room. She shivered.

“Are you all right, Rivani?” Allanon asked softly, his body still hovering high above hers. His smile was sheepish and surely meant to be reassuring. “I confess I feel at a loss today, not being able to see into your mind.”

She beamed a teasing smile back up at him. “Yes, you must go into this as blind as any other man would be.” She looked down the line of their bodies, poised to crash together once more. “I will admit to one more hesitation.” She swallowed. “You were so adamant yesterday that you did not want to do this.” She forced herself to look into his eyes as she asked the question. “And now we find this bed to be the ending to our quest. So I must ask… do you truly want me? Or do you perform this deed only out of duty?”

His answering smile was so warm, creasing his cheeks and the skin around his eyes as he rolled to lay down beside her. He drew her with hand on cheek to lie comfortably beside him, higher up on the bed. The change in position felt better, stopped her head from spinning so much. “Rivani,” he said softly, “I have wanted you from the first moment you laid eyes on me.”

“You mean when I came in for dinner, all sweaty from working in the garden?” Allanon had arrived in her home while she was absent, after her parents sought out his aid regarding her strange dreams.

“You were glowing,” he rumbled. “I was ashamed of it, and did my best to hide dishonorable thoughts. But yes,” he continued, catching her chin when she tried to look away in disbelieving modesty at his praise, “as soon as we met, I was lost. You have such beautiful eyes… they invite me in like the amber glow of a brightly-burning hearth.” He ran a thumb under her lashes, shivering across her cheekbone. “It has taken every last shred of willpower I have to resist you. Even now, I can scarcely believe I hold you in my arms, that I am to be allowed to touch you… even that it would be more dishonorable for me not to.” The torment in his eyes was real, but so was the tenderness.

“Then take comfort,” Rivani replied softly, running her hands up his bare chest. “If I am like the warmth of a welcoming fire to you, then come find home in me.”

The lonely Druid let loose a moan at those words, and brought his lips crashing to hers again. Rivani felt her whole body tingling at his confession, things that she had never even dared hope to hear spoken by the taciturn man now pressing the length of his body against hers.

Allanon kissed down her collarbone, hands running everywhere that they had carefully avoided during all those other nights they had spent together: hips, breasts, the stretch of her thigh. His thumb circled one of her nipples through the thin fabric of her dress, hardening it almost painfully. All her lust rushed back to her at once under the movement of his greedy hands.

Rivani moaned softly, lips pressed to the top of his head as her hands swept across the runes carved into his back. The ridged scars were fascinating, and the brush of her fingertips along them made him shudder against her. Playing with them only further reminded her of who she was opening herself to: the living legend Allanon, perhaps the most powerful man in the Four Lands. The one who sacrificed everything to protect not just humanity, but all the races that strove to live in peace and justice. She hoped she was truly giving him comfort, and not just future pain.

He lifted her leg and wrapped it around himself, palm sliding immediately down the back of her thigh and cupping her ass, fingers brushing where his tongue had been buried the night before. Rivani made a needy sound as Allanon continued on to the waistband of her leggings, which she was more than happy to help him peel down.

Whole body feeling hot and restless, Rivani found herself kneeling up on the bed beside his recumbent form as she struggled with the rest of her clothes. After kicking off her leggings she pressed her bare thighs together and watched him watch her slowly lift her dress.

“Let me,” he breathed, stopping her just before she revealed the apex of her thighs to him. He sat up and gathered up the fabric at either side of her waist, unwrapping her with longing eyes, nuzzling his cheek against hers before pulling the dress carefully up over her face.

Her arms were still above her head when she could see again, the peaks of her breasts pulled up by the position and presented for him, rising and falling rapidly with her breath. Allanon’s appreciative noise was almost solemn at the sight, and he ghosted his hands over her skin like he barely dared to touch. Rivani let her arms fall, casting the dress aside, and her black hair came tumbling down around her shoulders.

Her eyes sought his face, feeling suddenly vulnerable. Allanon drew the curtain of her hair around her body more fully, framing her as his gaze traveled from body to face and back again, taking in the full effect. “The sight of you is more beautiful than I even dared to dream,” he murmured. Then he looked her squarely in the eyes. “And more beautiful than _you_ think you are, compared to those images you attempted to taunt me with yesterday.” He slid his hand between hair and cheek, fingers softly running to cup the back of her neck.

Rivani grinned even as her face flushed. “I thought you must have stopped listening to my mind, when I was doing that. How else could you have remained so stoic?”

“Only with considerable effort.” He kissed her softly, then guided her to lay on her back in the center of the bed. His fingertips traveled over her bare skin so light that they almost tickled. His dark head bent over her body, and the Druid set to work familiarizing soft lips and rough hands with every inch of her.

When his fingers brushed through the curly hair covering her sex, Rivani let her legs fall open, eager for similar pleasures to last night. He parted her slick folds with two fingers as he pulled his body away from her reach, settling himself down between her legs with eager, parted lips. This time she could see better, observing the way his eyes fell closed in heavy pleasure as he tasted her. His mouth pressed in and she felt his tongue begin to work against her clit.

Her whole body shuddered. Primed by anxiety and anticipation, she found herself extremely sensitive, and grasped his hair between her fingers to slow him.

Allanon lifted his head, gazing up at her with sharp concern. “Slower,” she sighed, remembering how unaccustomed he was to relying on body language, stripped of his magical mind-reading advantage. He dropped his head and lapped at her, with long, lazy stripes that set her moaning into the sheets.

Then fingers joined tongue as he circled her entrance. He was careful, pressing just one digit inside as Rivani’s breath caught in her throat. He dipped it in and out, pushing just a little further every time, and when he started working in a second one Rivani could not stop thinking about how he was certainly trying to prepare her body for what was to come.

Nervous flutters returned, and pleasure mixed with a sense of deep vulnerability. Allanon seemed much too far away there at the bottom of the bed, with his head buried between her thighs. She made a distressed noise, and he looked up quickly once more.

“I—” her voice caught in her throat; she wasn’t sure what she wanted to say anyway. She didn’t want to tell him to stop, but she was overwhelmed.

Allanon’s brows creased, and he let his fingers slip carefully out of her body. “Rivani,” his deep voice rumbled, and he climbed up next to her on the mattress with concern in his eyes.

Embarrassment led her to pull him in close, kissing him deeply and assuring him with bare legs winding between his clothed ones that she still wanted to continue. She found his hand and put it back between her thighs, her lower lips already aching to feel him stretch her again.

Still, he asked for certainty with his eyes before he would press on, fingers stroking along only the outside of her entrance as he tried to interpret her face.

“You were too far away,” she explained. “I need to hold you while you—” she finished the sentence with bucking hips, pressing herself into his hand with as much eagerness as she could muster.

Allanon kissed her slow and deep, pressing his tongue past her teeth a moment before swirling two fingers up into her below, mirroring motions at mouth and pussy until she felt her whole body drawn like a bow between the two points.

He sank into her until his knuckles hit, and when he started pumping in rhythmic thrusts the line between pleasure and pressure started to blur. She felt as if the rest of her body was fading away, that she was becoming nothing but the aching joy in her cunt as he pressed harder and faster, stretching her for his cock. The intensity was almost painful now but she craved it. She anchored herself by clutching her arms around his neck, mewling into the musky skin behind his ear.

“Relax,” Allanon urged, slowing his movement. Rivani tried to take a slower breath, a little shaky, and then another. He hummed a reassuring sound and slipped his fingers out from her entirely. “You are so tense.”

She didn’t know what to say. She buried her face in his chest, forced her fingers to uncurl from his neck and caress smoothly down the heavy muscles of his back.

“Rivani,” he said, and made her look at him. “We are not in any rush,” he reminded her as she stared into deep brown eyes still bleeding black with his arousal. “You are safe as long as we are here at the Sanctum anyway. We can wait; we do not need to break your maidenhead tonight.”

She wasn’t sure how she wanted to answer. She ached for him to press into her again, but she appreciated the respite from the intensity too. She was already coming back into herself and the rest of her body. Her fingertips found the scars along his spine again, and Allanon twisted in a way reminiscent of a purring housecat when she traced along one of the curving lines.

“Let me get to know your skin,” she whispered. “Your smell, the embrace of your arms, the weight of your body…”

Allanon sighed and relaxed himself against her. “We have all the time you need.”

Their kisses turned slower, a lazy savoring as Rivani’s hands traveled over the breadth of his shoulders, along the lines branded into the back of his neck and the more randomly shaped scars that peppered other parts of his body. Signs of the long, painful life he had led. He deserved as much pleasure as she could give.

She ran her palm softly over the front of his trousers, and this time Allanon did not push her away. His hands came to cup the back of her neck, his breath heavy against her forehead as she explored the bulge straining under the fabric. He was happy to help her remove this barrier when she was ready, and soon his body was completely bared beside hers.

His cock curved tall and firm, darker at the tip and resting against his lower belly when she pushed him to lay on his back. Rivani enjoyed the feel of its velvety smooth skin under her palm, but she enjoyed even more the way Allanon’s jaw went slack as his eyes closed sweetly, savoring her touch. She watched his chest rise and fall with quickened breath as she took his length in hand, stroking up and down.

She pressed her lips over his heart, feeling the strong, rapid beat beneath her. She kissed her way down the center of his body as Allanon’s hands slid over her shoulders and back, unable to settle.

“The feel of your hair sliding across my skin,” he rasped, and Rivani smiled as she gave her head a languid shake, so her heavy locks spread further over his chest and stomach. But soon after her lips met the head of his cock, Allanon gathered all that hair up into one fist, the better to watch her swirl her tongue and take him into her mouth until lips met fist.

He groaned, and cursed under his breath when she tried a firm suck around his sensitive tip. “So bold,” he praised. “I was not certain you meant to do all of the things I saw in your mind…” he swallowed and exhaled heavily as she sucked him again. “I thought perhaps you only intended to tease me.”

“I want to give you every pleasure I know of,” she said, running her grip from root to tip through the wetness she had left on his shaft when she withdrew her mouth to speak. “And I hope that you will teach me more.”

Rivani swallowed him down again, and Allanon’s big hand cupped the back of her head in encouragement. She increased her pace and his back arched as he sucked in breath, thighs tensing under her. She could feel him holding himself back from thrusting up into her mouth. She thought about how that motion would soon bury him deep between her legs; whenever she wanted it. Whenever she said that she was ready.

“Slow, or I won’t last,” Allanon cautioned.

Rivani could only guess how long it had been for him, since he had ever let anyone touch him like this… she swirled her tongue heartily around his thickness before smoothing her lips up to release him and speak again. “We have all the time we want,” she echoed. “Just relax, and enjoy this.”

His groan rumbled almost involuntarily out of his chest when she took him back down, massaging his balls with her other hand as she stroked him firmly up and down with lips and fist. Allanon laced his fingers through her hair and relaxed back against the sheets.

His breaths came faster and faster, body twitching underneath her as she brought him closer and closer to the edge. She wanted to feel his cock inside her eventually, but right now she refused to be distracted from giving him his pleasure in this way that was more familiar to her.

And it was so seductive, having this powerful man overwhelmed and overcome beneath her… the rush of this moment was hard to relinquish for that reason too. His eyes were closed again, his lips softly pursing and releasing, forming silent words like he was begging. His breaths came faster and faster, fingers that had been combing through her hair now clenching near her roots.

“Rivani…” he warned, to which she responded only by hollowing her cheeks and pulling him in deeper, craving nothing more than to make him break.

She felt the man give in. He stopped trying to coax her away, pressing her instead more firmly over himself, palm at the back of her head urging her harder and faster. His loud panting ceased, replaced by a deep moan crawling out of the back of his throat as his body went rigid and his cock spasmed in great waves into her enveloping mouth. Rivani sealed her lips around him, not wanting to spill a drop as his seed filled her. She had to swallow before he was done, the final squeeze around his tip making him shudder and release a breathy laugh into the air above her head.

Such a light sound, simple joy and pleasured release, to be issuing from the throat of Allanon the Last Druid. Hearing him like that meant everything to Rivani. She licked him clean as she released him, earning another gleefully overwhelmed sound, then pulled herself up to lie next to him.

Allanon drew her tightly in under his arm, but he seemed otherwise unable to move as he struggled to catch his breath. Pride bubbled in Rivani’s chest. He stroked her hair idly as he came back into himself.

A contented hum purred behind his lips when he kissed her sweetly at the hairline. “This was supposed to be about you,” his low voice chided.

“I’ll have my turn.”

“Yes, you will,” he rumbled back, and rolled on top of her. His cock may have been spent, but apparently his energy wasn’t.

Rivani rolled herself against his body as Allanon’s tongue tangled with hers. His fingers found her sex awash with fresh arousal, eager for him to finish the work he had started. Rivani felt herself to be more relaxed this time, tension eased by the joyous release of Allanon’s seed and the pressure dissipated in the wake of that. His fingers swirled and fucked and it only felt _good_ , almost sweet enough to make her cry.

When his tongue found her clit as his fingers continued to pump at her from the inside, Rivani arched her spine almost in half, orgasm barreling through her quicker than she had expected. Her sounds had been reduced to mewling sobs, the climax feeling so different with thick fingers inside for her body to clench around.

And when Allanon rose from his belly between her legs, she could see his cock had swollen firm again.


	4. Chapter 4

Rivani reached down to run light fingers along his shaft. How he must want her, to be ready again so soon. She marveled at the thought. Allanon froze above her, letting her do as she wished as he held his weight up on his arms.

“Now,” she said softly, as her hand closed around his firmness and made his breath catch in his throat, “I want you now.” Her climax had been strong, but it had not cleared the lust from her. Not when the mighty Allanon was hovering over her, his body answering hers, the sheen of sweat on both of them only enticing her to glide against his skin.

The Druid groaned, an eager rumble that tickled her ear as he rubbed his cheek across her own. “Then I will not deny you any longer.”

“You did your best to resist me,” Rivani teased, turning her head and licking the words against his throat.

He pulled back so he could stare into her eyes, his own both lidded and fierce. “And failed. Utterly.” He smirked as his hand trailed down the inside of her thigh. “You win, Rivani.”

Her legs were still splayed open beneath him; she tugged at his cock to bring him in line with her entrance. A groan rippled out between his bared teeth when she brought his tip into contact with her wet folds, but he did not close his eyes or look away. He let her see him savor it.

His hand slipped under hers, assuming control as he dragged the head of his cock up and down, across her sex, watching every change in expression on her face. He was mocking her eagerness now. She hadn’t thought he had it in him to be so playful.

Rivani grinned back up at him, cooed and sighed and lifted her hips in attempt to catch him.

Allanon let her meet him, then sank in until he reached her first resistance, pausing when her face froze at the stretch, the feeling of fullness creeping in beyond what his fingers had been able to prepare her for. “Oh.”

He kissed her, hips still frozen in place, not much more than the head of him inside her. Then his lips left hers and he pressed in more.

“Ahh…” It did hurt a little, but not very much. The burn of the stretch was erotic, even. Some deep submissive instinct bubbled up in her as she felt herself utterly caught by him. She had won but so had he, and now he was pushing her limits just as she had his. She clutched at his shoulders to encourage him, even if she couldn’t quite make her hips relax.

“Is this all right?” he rumbled against her cheek, still pressing steadily against her tightness.

“Yes.” Her voice only squealed a little. Even her face was tingling, the moment so exquisite.

When he was fully sheathed he sighed, like he had just found some comfort he had been in search of for ages. Rivani’s breaths were coming much more rapidly.

He started to withdraw, and the pressure lessened. He pushed back in before coming all the way out, and Rivani surprised herself with the volume of her moan; that movement felt so much better than just sitting still. “Do that again,” she exclaimed.

Allanon heaved out a breathy little chuckle and obliged her, rolling his hips and giving her a few steady thrusts.

Passion exploded in her walls all around him. “Ah, ah, yes,” she encouraged, clutching at his arms, barely realizing her nails were indenting his deltoids. “Fuck, that feels good.”

He chuckled at her uncharacteristic cursing, and nipped at the side of her face. “Whatever you wish, Rivani.”

Her heart swelled even as the intensity of the feeling lessened, her body growing more used to his girth. Allanon’s face was reverent and flushed as he watched her carefully, clearly intent on making this the best possible experience for her.

“I told you last night what I wished,” Rivani finally said. The joining of their hips had started to feel pleasantly comfortable. Almost disappointingly so. “I want you to take me exactly how you like. I want you to make me yours.”

His eyes, so focused and grateful as he rocked in and out of her, rested on her face for a long moment. She could see what he was thinking about. He was still holding back.

“I want what I saw in that ruined palace,” she urged. “I want you to abandon yourself like you did with that demon.”

Allanon shook his head slightly, though it seemed that the force of his thrusts increased just a little. “I was not careful with her. Her magic clouded my mind. I was overcome with lust.”

Rivani moaned as he hit a good spot, then formed her panting lips into an exaggerated pout. “And do you not feel that kind of lust for me?”

Allanon’s jaw flexed, and she saw the beast hiding behind his eyes. Yes, he did. “I don’t want to ruin your first time. You deserve to be loved, Rivani, not mounted like a--”

“ _You_ deserve to get what you want, too.”

His smile was beatific as he gazed down at her. “I am getting what I want.” He angled his hips as he pressed in slow, making her moan again as he dragged against something absolutely delicious deep inside her.

This slow style did feel good. Rivani closed her eyes, and tried to let Allanon do it his way. Which was… not the way he wanted, but the way he thought she wanted, even though she had just told him what she wanted. The man was insufferable.

“Roll over,” Rivani demanded, pushing at his shoulder ineffectively, but with authority. As soon as he shifted his weight she wrapped her legs around him tight, but he slipped himself out from her anyway before he rolled to settle onto his back.

Rivani pressed her hands against his shoulders, pushing herself up to a seated position, knees straddling his hips just behind his suddenly-lonely cock. She was annoyed that he had pulled out, being too careful again. “I’m not made of glass, you know.”

Allanon tried to grumble something back but she hushed him, sliding her fingers across his lips.

“I want to take everything you have to give, Allanon.” She pressed those fingers into his mouth, thrilling at the way he immediately suckled them, his dark eyes riveted to her own. “And if a lusty demon is what it takes to convince you to let loose, I can do that…” She rolled her hips against him, as lasciviously as she knew how. She dropped her chin so her eyes could go veiled and sultry, and she arched her back and brought his hands to her breasts.

Allanon’s eyelids fluttered, but he could not look away from her. His scarred hands closed eagerly around her supple flesh, finding her nipples to circle with the pads of his thumbs. Rivani flashed her brows at him as she dragged her wet cunt over the shaft of his cock, crushing his tip into his own belly. He groaned and threw his head back, hips yearning up towards her.

Rivani continued to tease, writhing as she took a moment to admire his body laid out below her. She brushed her fingers through the hair on his chest, curling her hands around his sides and daring to drag nails down along his ribs. It only seemed to drive him wilder, his head tossing back and forth across the sheets as her fingertips converged at his hips. “Do you want something, Allanon?”

“Enough teasing,” he growled. Then _whimpered_ as Rivani sank herself back over his length. The new angle felt noticeably different, easier in some ways and more intense in others. But she could control the pace now, and she found her hips rocking at sharper and sharper angles, chasing the high that came every time his penetration hit that line between pleasure and pain. “So deep,” she thought she heard him marvel.

She raked her fingers more cruelly down his chest. She wanted his passion stoked beyond reason. Allanon groaned and grabbed her hips, thrusting up into her and trying to steady her to match the rhythm he wanted. She threw her head back with a pleasured sigh and tried to bounce in time with him, but they just seemed to be working at cross purposes.

Allanon let loose a frustrated growl and reared up from the bed suddenly, arms scooping around her body as he lifted them both off the mattress. Thankfully the bed was enormous; he pushed her straight over onto her back in a move so fast it knocked half the wind out of her. This time their bodies never separated, and he was snapping his hips hard into her before she could even take in another breath. He pressed his forehead against her own, eyes intent with a near-bottomless need.

Rivani moaned her delight, mind not even capable of forming words under the fresh onslaught. Here was that lust she had glimpsed in the ruined palace. And this time it was truly for her. Allanon wasn’t even kissing her anymore, tongue licking and teeth scraping the column of her throat as she dropped her head back until it hung halfway off the side of the bed. And his thrusts… each snap of his hips jolted somewhere halfway up her belly, and they were coming so fast that all she could do was cling to him and try to breathe past the endless groan of overwhelmed joy he was forcing out of her.

Her hands scrambled down his back, seizing on his buttocks as they squeezed and flexed. Ridged lines slid up and down under her palms; it seemed those Druid brands reached down even to the top of his ass. She had begun the gesture in sudden urge to slow his hips, but that tactile reminder of the cruel hand Fate had dealt this man, destined to be alone, now only spurred her to suck in breath and bear every last ounce of passion he wanted to pour over her.

Her nails squeezed into his soft cheeks and Allanon’s body went rigid, pushing impossibly deeper, making Rivani wail even as he groaned through his teeth. Tingles burst across her body when she realized he must be about to spend himself in her. She pressed her hips up to meet him and felt how close to the edge she was herself. “Don’t stop,” she gasped, and when Allanon ploughed her raggedly her body clenched and shook, pulling him over the edge with her as their muscles seized until they would move no more.

 

Rivani had no idea how long they lay together after that, panting and clutching and loathe to let go even after he grew soft inside her. No matter what anyone said, did, or wanted, she would have to release him forever one day, and disentangling their limbs right now felt like the horrid first step onto that path.

“And just like that, you are safe,” he breathed in her ear, chuckling lightly.

“My savior.” Rivani buried her nose behind his ear. His body stiffened a little, but she nuzzled him with soft kisses as her arms hugged tight around his chest. Maybe she should be backing off, creating distance right now. Maybe then it would hurt less when he rode off to his next calling. But that wasn’t how she wanted to end this, pushing him away. He would always be special to her, her first, her chosen one, and she could treat him that way until the inevitable end.

“Savior.” Allanon’s voice was going wry and tense. “It could have been anyone.” He started to lift himself out of her arms, looking away from her. “Just the most mundane sort of magic, to keep you from the Warlock Lord.”

Anger burst in Rivani’s chest, covering the hurt that the word ‘mundane’ had stabbed into her belly. She released her grip, let Allanon roll away from her. Even pushed him off, a little bit. “Right. I suppose a great, worldly man like yourself _would_ find what we just did to be entirely ordinary.” Her right arm scrambled to pull up the edge of the cloudy white bedcover, as Allanon’s heavy body landed to her left. She wrapped it hastily around herself, suddenly unable to bear being naked in front of him. “Such a _mundane_ task could hardly be worthy of the Last Druid.”

Allanon rose up on his elbow, face still and mostly blank as he inspected her changed expression. His lips parted like he was about to say something, but nothing came out.

She noticed the soreness growing between her legs as she waited for him to say something, and she wondered if she was going to end up regretting this day.

His stony face softened, but he only looked sad underneath. “I misspoke. What we shared was wonderful, Rivani. You were amazing.” He pressed his lips together, then kissed her chastely on the forehead. “It was a great honor.” He straightened, and made to rise from the bed.

“I know what you’re doing. And I need you to stop.”

Allanon froze for a moment, his rune-covered back rippled as he bent to look for his clothes.

“You think it will hurt less if you push me away now. Are you still trying not to break my heart?”

Allanon scooped his trousers off the floor, and stood. He did not turn to look at her.

“Because you’re doing a decent job of that right now, being so cold.”

When he finally met her gaze the sclera of his eyes had turned pink, though his jaw was still. “Later, it would be worse.”

How many times had the handsome Druid been through something like this before? Rivani pushed the thought away. “It doesn’t have to be. It’s not like we’re in love,” she lied.

Allanon twisted back toward her, marveling at the quiet ferocity in her face.

“You don’t have to pull away from me like this. I just gave you my maidenhead, Allanon, don’t be cruel. Can I not have your affection for a little longer? Can’t we care for each other, comfort each other, enjoy each other, even, until you take me back home and our journey is finally over? I understand that it has to end. But it doesn’t have to end this very moment.”

Allanon dropped his clothes back on the floor, knelt on the bed beside her. “I have a heart that could break too, you know.” He laid down beside her, face calm and open as he set a hand on her blanketed shoulder.

And just like that, Rivani understood the guilt he had been feeling, for now she felt it too.

“Allanon…” Her hand crept out from under the blanket, touching his face lightly as those melancholy brown eyes started to fill up with warmth. “I have been so selfish. I barely stopped to think—"

“Hush,” he rumbled, catching her hand with his own, keeping it against his cheek. “I feel just as you said yesterday: the damage is already done.” He twisted his neck to press a kiss into her palm, then returned her hand to his face as he reached out to gather her body in closer to his. “I cannot just stop my feelings for you, either. And it warms me more than you will ever know, that you are willing to face greater loss later just to share yourself with me now.”

Rivani pulled the blanket away, so she could feel him against her bare skin from the tops of her feet to the hollows in front of her shoulders. She pressed her body against his, still gazing up at him. “I wouldn’t dare to keep you from your calling. But while I have you, I am going to hold on tight. If I regret it later, I can bear that.”

His wide smile was reassuring. “I don't regret any of this. I will cherish you for as long as we have.”

 

Their journey back to Rivani’s home was punctuated by frequent, impassioned stops. All it would take was for Allanon to roll his hips on his horse in a certain way, or Rivani’s fingers to slide along the back of his neck, and they would soon be entangled in each other’s arms again.

They had each other in every position they could think of, backs up against trees, faces pressed to soft grass, wide eyes staring at the stars. Once Allanon revealed that the Druid magic made him incapable of fathering children, Rivani could think of no reason to keep his hands from her body.

They knew their time together was short. Thoughts of it only spurred them to crash against each other more often.

They reached the family farm in the evening. Rivani’s astounded and joyful parents embraced them both, and made Allanon stay for dinner. It was only good sense, then, that he should spend the night there too, before resuming his travels in the morning.

Rivani made love to him one more time, after midnight, in the cozy warmth of the barn. She traced each scar, and every brand, attempting to memorize every inch of her first lover. “Will I see you again?”

“It is possible. There is no way to be certain; I can never predict when the need for the Druid sleep will take me again. But I will try to come back. If you want me to.”

“Of course I do!”

Allanon’s exhale was slow and seemed to last forever. “Don’t wait for me.” He brought her face closer, making sure that he could see her eyes in the thin moonlight penetrating the gaps in the walls. “Promise me, that you will not miss me. I did this so that you could have your life back. Use it. Do not waste time being sad when I am gone.”

“You think pretty highly of yourself, don’t you,” Rivani retorted. The jab gave her time to process his words, to ease the iron band that had started constricting her heart. Allanon only held her gaze, making certain she would take this seriously. She shook her head. “I can't promise not to miss you. But yes Allanon, I am not planning on moping around without you.”

He seemed reassured, but he couldn’t leave it at that. “It will please me as I slumber the years away, to know that you got married. Had a family. I want you to have those things.”

“I want them too,” Rivani agreed, just a little defensively. He was getting patronizing again. “And I will have them. Just… come back to me, when you can. Even if my life has already moved on. Even if it’s… a very long time. Or if it’s just a few months from now. I will always want to know you. You will always be important to me.”

Allanon pulled her in close, his breath seeming labored in his chest. They spoke very little the rest of the night, and Rivani smiled bravely as she watched him ride off in the morning.


End file.
